


Slow Jam

by coolangelsthesis



Category: Watch Dogs (Video Games)
Genre: Alcohol, Fluff, Kissing, M/M, Minor Original Character(s), Recreational Drug Use, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-09
Updated: 2019-05-09
Packaged: 2020-02-28 20:18:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18763471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coolangelsthesis/pseuds/coolangelsthesis
Summary: Wrench is good at guitar, not that he'll ever admit it. And sometimes he plays in a band. Not that he'll ever admit that, either.





	Slow Jam

**Author's Note:**

> I've been wanting to write a fic about Wrench playing guitar for a LONG time, and finally got around to it.
> 
> A big, wonderful thank you to [DramaticalHearts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kusokawaii/pseuds/DramaticalHearts) for beta-ing! If you ever have something you need looked over, she's the best!

The first time they got stoned at Marcus’s apartment, Wrench managed to find the acoustic guitar Marcus had been hiding in the back of his closet.

Sitara had kicked them out of the Hackerspace for the night so she could work on her latest art project— and she was _not_ a fan of listening to a Siska marathon while she worked. They didn’t even get that far into one of Siska’s first films, _Infinite Punishment_ , before the weed made them lose their collective focus.

Wrench started it, though. He had gone off on a tangent and was digging around in there trying to find evidence of Marcus's horrible taste in fashion when he saw it, his abandoned guitar, in all its detuned and dusted glory.

“Ooh! I didn’t know you played.” He strummed the guitar, mask flashing a pained emoticon at the sound, completely out of tune. “Used to play?”

“Tried to play. I suck at it, though. You?” Marcus took a seat on the edge of his bed. Blasted out of his mind, he discovered that watching Wrench’s fingers as he tuned the guitar back into harmony was absolutely fascinating.

“A little,” Wrench said, then strummed a chord. Apparently satisfied, he turned to Marcus and his mask flashed a wink. “Anyway, here’s Wonderwall.”

Then he broke out into the opening riff of that godawful song with gusto. Marcus chuckled, and Wrench quickly joined in after him.

“Play Teen Spirit,” Marcus challenged.

And Wrench did, effortlessly. “Easy as hell, dude.”

“Wish You Were Here?”

Wrench flashed him wide eyes, then question marks, before looking down at the guitar. “Uhh…”

He messed with the tuning, then played something _similar_ to Wish You Were Here— one or two chords wrong or off key. Then he joined Marcus on his bed and started strumming something else, something Marcus didn’t recognize.

But he _did_ recognize that Wrench was… pretty talented. He made it look so easy, meanwhile when Marcus tried to play that guitar he ended up looking like a fool.

“Damn, you’re really good, Wrench,” Marcus thought out loud. He noticed Wrench’s hand slip and mess up part of the song he was playing. Aw… he made Wrench mess up.

“Hah, that’s only ‘cause I’m fucking baked, I can focus more and all that shit. Which I’m guessing is also why I’m playing in front of you right now, I don’t like playing in front of other people like this, so this is really, really weird. Huh.”

Marcus couldn’t help but smile. Wrench was acting shy, and it was kinda… cute? Wrench was cute? Yeah... yeah, he was.

“Well I like listening to you. You should play stuff more often during parties, man. You’d get so many girls.”

Wrench paused, then flashed happy carats. “If you want me to serenade you more often, you could have just asked, M. But if you think this is impressive, you should see me on electric. You know, sometimes I… no, nevermind… ah, fuck it, I play in a band. Sometimes.”

“No shit? You must be pretty good, then.” Marcus blinked, trying to work through Wrench’s logic. Like being in a band was something to keep secret? Wrench was fucking weird about some things. (Still cute, though. Probably straight, though. Wouldn’t be interested even if he wasn’t, though.)

“Eh, it’s really nothing big. The band is fucking terrible, but… yeah. I play with them sometimes.”

“I’m coming to your next show.”

Wrench laughed, strummed the guitar once more, then set it down gently. “Yeah, whatever.”

*

“What is that from?”

“What is what from?”

They were rare, the moments Wrench voluntarily took his mask off. In his garage and in Marcus’s apartment— or in the Hackerspace when they were alone— were about the only places he had ever taken the mask off himself.

They had started becoming less rare as of late, after Marcus got too drunk and let it slip that he’d been crushing for a while. Coincidentally, Wrench had too, for even longer. Things quickly escalated from there, like a wild roller coaster hurtling back down to earth after its agonizingly slow climb. They could only be more joined at the hip if someone surgically stitched them together.

Recently, Marcus had taken a liking to doing most of his work at Wrench's garage. The place had taken on a different kind of importance after they started dating. It was Wrench's space, obviously, but it had morphed into a place where they could work and be alone. And that mask was just another obstacle in the way of utilizing their time away from the others.

One of Marcus’s personal favorite bonuses from that was how Wrench would shoot a lovesick smile at Marcus between taking a sledgehammer to Haum appliances. Only Wrench could make violence look romantic.

But he also loved the quiet moments in between. During breaks, seeing what Wrench looked like under there as he took drags from a cigarette in the worst, most cliched and romantic way as he sat hunched over his electric guitar. Playing that same riff he played all the time, but Marcus could never tell what it was.

He couldn’t get it out of his head, and despite how hard he tried to figure out what it was without killing his music-savvy cred with Wrench, he always came up short. And he’d exhausted all his other options.

“What’s what from, dude?” Wrench asked again, frowning with confusion. He took the last drag of his cigarette and tossed the butt approximately towards the closest ashtray.

“That song you always play. I have no idea what it is.”

Wrench stared for a moment in thought. “Oh, you mean this one?”

Then Wrench played it again, as seamlessly as he always did. As Marcus nodded, Wrench chuckled.

“I made it up.”

“ _Seriously_?!” Marcus stood up from his chair. “No way. I’ve totally heard that somewhere else before.”

Wrench set down his guitar, smirking. “Unless you’re tapping into my thoughts maybe, or perhaps someone else somewhere at some time _also_ came up with a pretty simple riff. But for all intents and purposes, it’s one-hundred percent the brainchild of Wrench and Wrench alone, baby.”

“Well, it’s good.” He wandered closer to Wrench and pulled him in close. “You’re really good.”

Wrench rolled his eyes, but moved in to the touch. “You can’t just compliment your way into my pants all the time, Marcus.”

“It’s worked so far for me, right? So am I ever gonna hear the whole song?”

“Absolutely fucking not. I mean, there’s not even a whole song for you to hear. I don’t write songs, M… and even if I did— you know what... just, just don’t worry about it.”

Then Wrench was pulling Marcus into a hungry kiss. He led Marcus up the garage’s stairs into his shitty excuse of a bedroom and soon after, Marcus dropped the thought completely.

From then on, when Wrench played that song, whatever it was, Marcus couldn’t help but smile. His boyfriend was talented!

*

Sitara took a sip from her beer, looking over the crowd in the cramped venue. “I didn’t even know Wrench was in a band.”

Marcus nodded at the bartender as she handed him his beer. “I didn’t either, really, until I got a nasty noise complaint when they were over at our apartment practicing.”

Sitara laughed. “Holy shit. So is he any good?”

“He’s pretty good, Sitara. But he won’t ever admit it.”

“Think we can get him to start putting on concerts for us at the Hackerspace? I’m sure Josh would enjoy it.”

“Yeah, no. But maybe you could throw in a song request and I can see what I can do.”

They moved away from the bar, towards a spot with a better view of the stage. Dimmed lights barely illuminated the instruments on stage, and Marcus couldn’t help but feel a little nervous. Excited? Nervous for Wrench, but excited to see him play? Something like that.

He took a drink of his beer to chase away the feeling.

“I’ve actually never seen him play with his band before,” Marcus admitted, looking to Sitara. “He only plays when their lead does something stupid, and I guess he broke his arm last week? Wrench says they’re fucking terrible and says we shouldn’t stay for the main act ‘cause they’re even worse.”

“Pretty sure I brought some earplugs if we need ‘em, don’t worry,” Sitara teased. “But looking around, I think Wrench took a wild guess that moshing in spiked leather and ripped denim wouldn’t be your sort of thing. What’s his band called again?”

“Karma Suture.”

“Oh my god, that’s awful.”

“I know.”

He was about to crack another joke, but was cut off by the stage lights flashing on and the crowd going wild. As the band entered the stage, Marcus noted one or two familiar faces, friends of Wrench’s they’d gone out drinking with before. Then came in Wrench, in something even more punk than his usual getup, if that was even possible, to match the rest of the band.

Marcus cupped a hand to his mouth and cheered; Sitara joined in by shouting Wrench’s name. Wrench looked up from tuning his guitar, searched through the crowd of people and flashed happy carets once he landed in their general direction.

They started with a song with fast tempo with help of two drummers, shouting more than singing from the lead singer, and Wrench somehow preventing the whole thing from falling apart by keeping the rhythm.

During the second song, one of the drummers ended up throwing one of his sticks across the stage and had to improvise playing one-handed.

By the third song, the lead had already downed half a bottle of wine and had nearly whipped off the strap on his guitar.

But they weren’t bad. While not anything Marcus would choose to listen to on his own, he wouldn’t call them shitty. Chaotic, maybe, a bit like watching a train wreck unfold in slow motion, but they weren’t bad. A little less intense than he had envisioned; less thrash, more fuck-the-rich.

Sitara seemed mildly impressed, as well. The rest of the crowd was somewhere in between. It was a good mix of people head-bobbing along and those sitting around on their phones waiting for the headlining band.

Watching him perform on stage was completely different than when he was just playing for him. He could totally buy Wrench making it big; he played for the audience, and played up the Wrench persona. And Marcus couldn’t take his eyes off him— maybe he was biased, but he could play miles above the rest of the band on a bad day.

Towards the end of their set, Wrench leaned over to their singer and whispered something in his ear. The guy nodded, repeated something to the rest of the band, then turned to the crowd.

“Yeah, so we’re Karma Suture. What’s up, San Francisco?!”

The crowd cheered back pathetically.

“I’m Crash, bass is Morgan, drums we got Gasket and Pete, and on guitar’s Wrench.”

More obligatory cheering.

“We got one more song for you tonight and then Six Second Sex’ll be up. Who’s ready for—”

“Uh, also, I wrote it, thanks,” Wrench butted in with his mike, mask flashing annoyed sideyes. Also his vocal distortion was turned off?

“Oh, yeah, also Wrench wrote it. Aaaanyway. Blah blah, thanks for coming out, you’ve been great... all that shit. Alright. One, two, three, four!”

Sitara shot a look at Marcus. He stared back, just as shocked. _Since when was Wrench writing songs?_

The thought was cut out by drums and something familiar. That guitar riff he’d heard maybe a thousand times over, only more refined, put together. Gentler.

Then the rest of the band played along with something softer than the rest of the songs they had been playing. And then Wrench was back at his microphone and… _Holy shit_.

Wrench was singing? Through the mask, without any distortion to his voice?

“Why didn’t you tell me Wrench sings?!” Sitara shouted into Marcus’s ear.

“I didn’t know!” he shouted back.

As the initial surprise died down, it quickly dawned on Marcus that this was fucking love song. About him. About being in love with Marcus.

He didn't even have to add his name into it to make it obvious. That riff he was constantly playing was telling enough. It reminded him of Marcus... which is why he played it all the time.

Holy. _Shit_.

All he wanted to do was jump and shout like a giddy _fool_ and chase Wrench down after the show and kiss him hard, but he was trapped, enamored, with a big helpless lovesick grin. And Wrench was staring— no, singing— at Marcus with heart emotes for eyes. He was probably grinning under the mask, too, as he sang.

And then the song ended, and the crowd cheered as the band hurried off the stage. Marcus was still caught in a daze, and he still wanted to kiss him _really_ badly.

He couldn’t have been dreaming, because Sitara nearly sent him tumbling over as she wrapped an arm around his shoulders.

“Holy _shit_ , Marcus!” she shouted above the roar of the crowd. “Wrench wrote and sang you a fucking love song. That’s like daytime soap opera levels of cheese.”

“Well, it’s a good thing I’m not lactose intolerant,” he grinned.

She rolled her eyes and socked him in the arm. “God, you two are terrible. Terrible, romantic nerds.”

He laughed, and his phone went off in his pocket several times at once. As he fished it out of his pockets, Marcus had three text messages, all from Wrench:

8:43: _I cant believe you stayed thru the WHOLE thing lol, we SUCK. But I hope you liked the song ;)_

8:44: _Meet out front?_

8:44: _ <3 _

Smiling down at his phone— he couldn’t stop smiling even if he tried— Marcus quickly replied back:

8:44: _ <3 <3 _

**Author's Note:**

> For the life of me could not come up with lyrics, and it felt weird using lyrics that already existed, so I sprinkled in some reader participation: you get to use your imaaagination! (but if you wanted some audio approximation, probably [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIKO4YIzp-o)?)
> 
> But thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed it! Kudos/comments are always appreciated. <3


End file.
